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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I am looking to change my wifes computer from win xp pro to a dual boot system.
She is running three 17" Dell Trinitron monitors. The video cards are ATI 9200's.
1 AGP 1 PCI. I will probably be buying another 9200 PCI soon to run three seperate monitors.

I know SUSE and Mandrake are good at hardware detection.

I would like to install Debian or Slack 10.1, but I am unsure how good the hardware detection is.

Does anyone have any advice.

I have installed a lot of different distros, but setting up multiple monitors seems daunting.
I know every distro is capable of setting this up. I would just like a no brainer install that has all 3 monitors up in running on the first boot without much intervention from me.

Thanks for the quick response.
Gentoo sounds great.
But, I am still a little gun shy of Gentoo's install process.
I just attempted a stage 3 64bit install on my main computer. I got a working system, but had troubles emerging from the source discs. I am waiting for high speed access to get do a stage one. Computer now has FC4 on it to play around with.

Anyway the point of this is I am connected now via a slow 28.8 connection. I should have Fios within a month. I will try a stage one x386 install and see how it goes.

I might need to hit you up for the xorg.conf file later.
Do you have 3 video cards?

yes I have a riva and 2 s3s I built my system as a stage 3 then eventtualy recompiled everything so it's like a stage 1 I found the package cd's to be more trouble then they are worth (I downloaded the packages 'cause I have a slow 56k conection and I could get the cd of someone else's dsl but I ended up having to re-emerge all that stuff from the net again anyway 'cause they don't come with the source)so a faster conection would be nice. If you want some help with the install let me know.

what's the cpu?
I ask, because I am wondering how many desktops I can have running at once?
I have never used more than 4. It would be nice to have 12 running.( I love multitasking)

I built my wife's computer a couple years ago. It is and AMD antlon XP 2800+.( I've been putting off an upgrade for a while since all my wife does is tinker with OFFICE stuff.)
It's been nice to have multiple monitors working under win to open multiple pages at once and switch between them as they load. It helps make the 28.8 connection a little more bearable.

I will probably be taking you up on your offer for help.
I have installed a bunch of distros, but gentoo is the only one that gave me real big headaches. It had to do with the way I had to install it, but still a pain.
I imagine the stage 1 install will be longer, but with less headaches.

once you set up gentoo I find alot of things simpler then in suse (suposed to be easy) if a stage 3 tarball is available for your cpu then a stage 1 install will yeild about the same result as a stage 3 without the packages cd. as for my computer currently: